Mother Goose

Last Saturday morning, the editorial pages of several newspapers carried a political cartoon in which a concerned President Bush was being told by an aide to "convince these people to start buying American products." "OK," the president was seen replying, "where are we?" "America," the aide replied.Meanwhile, on the comic pages, the mischievous bull terrier who is the protagonist in "Mother Goose & Grimm" (which appears in The Sun) was dumping the litter box of his feline nemesis Attila into a trash can emblazoned with the instructions "Put Litter Here."

ELMONT, N.Y. -- They put together the best horse race run this year, at any track, at any time -- an event so special that it left everyone demanding more.And today, the rematch.Meadow Star and Lite Light will attempt to repeat their epic Mother Goose Stakes battle in the Coaching Club American Oaks at Belmont, a race that also has attracted an undefeated filly, Shared Interest.For now, Meadow Star is the leader of the division, by an eyelash. She held off Lite Light through a furious 3-furlong drive and won the Mother Goose by a fraction of a nose.

JUST WHEN you thought you'd heard every last damming word about American children's ignorance,along comes the news that our toddlers don't know Mother Goose.Bette Goldstone,an education proffessor at Beaver College surveyed 150 preschoolers in suburban Philadelphia.More than a third apparently never heard " Jack Be Nimble," " Hey.Diddle Diddle," or " Little Miss Muffett." Goldstone deplores their deprivation because nursery rhymes develop children's feel for Language and prepare them to read.

Lite Light will return to New York for a rematch against Meadow Star in the Coaching Club American Oaks July 6, but it's going to be hard to match their awesome duel in the Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park a week ago.Meadow Star won by about a half-inch, giving a fitting end to what the New York Racing Association rightfully called the year's best weekend of racing in the country.Unwarranted criticism of jockey Corey Nakatani, who rode Lite Light, will long be forgotten when the 1991 Mother Goose is included in a list of memorable races.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Providing a fitting conclusion to a memorable weekend, Meadow Star outfought Lite Light in a torrid stretch duel in the $200,000 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park yesterday.Meadow Star won by a fraction of an inch over Lite Light after the pair went nose-to-nose through the long Belmont stretch. Meadow Star led on a slow pace before Lite Light, farthest outside, drew even at the quarter pole.As a crowd of 16,784 roared, Meadow Star appeared to have a visible margin one stride before the wire, but Lite Light gave a final gasp that rendered them virtually inseparable.

When M.C. Hammer showed up on the Belmont Park W backstretch Friday morning, he lent a little excitement to an otherwise mundane pre-Belmont week.The 27-year-old rap star and his entourage of about 10 mad their way from barn to barn, turning heads and drawing whoops. Hammer had his picture taken with Lite Light, Strike the Gold and even Meadow Star, but when asked to pose with Media Plan, he refused because the colt had not yet won for Oaktown Stable, the outfit owned by his family. "Got to win first," he said.

Lite Light will not run in the June 8 Belmont Stakes after all.The filly instead will run against her own kind, including Meadow Star, in the Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park the next day, one of her owners, Louis Burrell Jr., said yesterday from California.The decision sets up a potentially dramatic match among the nation's top two 3-year-old fillies.The size of the Belmont field, which should be the biggest in eight years, was a factor in causing Lite Light's owners to skip the Belmont, Burrell said.

No one would have guessed that "Mother Goose" was about to "fly" away.Like many times before, 81-year-old Marian Mathews, known in certain story circles as Mother Goose, was decked out in her storytelling-best, wearing a festive cotton jumper and a dotted Swiss hat. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Mathews gave her undivided attention to 5-year-old Greg Bartos. This time, however, she was offering her weekly story hour for the last time at the Savage Community Library, atthe Carroll Baldwin Community Hall in Savage.

Commuters along Route 40 near Bethany Lane have the opportunity to glance at a slice of film history situated among ongoing renovations where the Enchanted Forest theme park used to be.The enormous black gosling, which peers from under the suspended smiling countenance of Old King Cole, was recently an odd-looking set piece in one scene of John Waters' film "Crybaby," a musical about two rival social groups in Baltimore's suburbs: the Drapes and the Squares.In...